By twilight, about 300 illegal immigrants had massed on "the soccer
field," a patch of rock-strewn brown earth halfway up Otay Mesa and
just across the U.S. border from a rundown section of Tijuana, Mexico.
Some bought tacos from a vendor who wheeled a white cart through the
crowd; others burned old tires to cook makeshift meals before pushing
off into the rattlesnake-infested canyons leading toward San Ysidro,
Calif., and points north. Two dozen agents of the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS), deployed in...